CBET 4790 & MPEC 2020-L09, issued on 2020, June 02, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~20) in four 45-s w-band CCD images obtained with the Pan-STARRS1 1.8-m Ritchey-Chretien reflector at Haleakala. The new comet has been designated C/2020 K7 (PANSTARRS).

We performed follow-up measurements of this object while it was still on the PCCP webpage.

When we stargaze, we bask in photons that have traveled for many millennia before reaching our eyes. To us, the stars appear fixed on a so-called celestial sphere that encapsulates our entire earthly existence.

The truth, of course, is that no such sphere exists. Instead, stars and galaxies are scattered through the cosmos at distances so great they're incomprehensible to us.

But not all celestial phenomena exist so far away. Every day, shooting stars fail to recognize a boundary between space and Earth, dropping rocks from above — and often with dramatic results.

Our planet is vast, so meteorites typically don't concern us. But every once in a while, these objects actually strike humans and our property. Based purely on statistics, researchers estimate that a space rock should strike a human roughly once every nine years. And with those odds, you'd expect people to get killed by meteorites fairly often.

"I do strongly suspect that stats on 'death by asteroid' have been severely undercounted through human history," NASA Planetary Defense Officer Lindley Johnson told Astronomy via email. "It's only been in the last half century or so that we've even realized that such a thing could happen."

However, researchers still have not found a single confirmed case of death by space rock. But that's not to say we haven't come close. Modern history is full of near misses. On many occasions, space rocks have exploded over populated areas and sent thousands of meteorites raining down.

One of the most recent and well-known examples occurred in Chelyabinsk, Russia, in 2013, when a house-sized asteroid exploded over the city and injured some 1,200 people. Further back, on Jan. 30, 1868, a meteor exploded outside a town called Pultusk, near Warsaw, Poland, creating a literal meteor shower: More than 100,000 stones fell from the sky. The biggest recovered meteorite (a fragment of a space rock that makes it to the ground) weighed 20 pounds. It's the largest meteorite fall on record.

Videos of the suspected meteor's fall appear to suggest that it went down somewhere in the vicinity of the Armenian town of Hrazdan.

Residents of Armenia's Kotyak province were likely in for quite a surprise on the evening of 27 May as a flying object, which Public Radio of Armenia suggests might've been a meteor, flashed across the sky.

According to the media outlet, videos of this event that started emerging online show the object falling in the vicinity of the town of Hrazdan which is located about 45 kilometers northeast of the capital Yerevan.

On the evening of Wednesday 27 May, residents of northern Turkey were treated to a spectacular light show. Videos on social media show a meteor fireball streaking across the sky, before exploding in the air with a thunderous boom.

According to Turkish news website Daily Sabah a "ball of light" was observed in several provinces at around 8:30 pm local time, including Artvin, Erzurum, Sivas, Tuncel and Ardahan.

Hürriyet reports that a sound similar to thunder was heard as a result of the explosion.

Several Pakuranga residents reported seeing a bright flash of light or a "fireball" above the Tamaki River in the vicinity of Waipuna Bridge at around 6:47 pm on Monday 25 May. According to some eyewitnesses, the object was alleged to have then crashed into the water.

Reports of a "bright light" and "an explosion" flooded the east Auckland grapevine page as local people recounted what they had seen. Many speculated a meteor, a rocket from nearby Rocket Lab, or even a flare was responsible.

Corinne Hill, whose property on Pakuranga Rd backs on to the river saw "A Bright orange-red (object) about the size of 3 full moons joined together. It (sic) was travelling at speed over the water till it appeared to hit the water and disappeared."

According to Hill, the object made no sound, and by the time she "went to get binoculars out" it had gone.

Ms Hill also stated the object "It appeared to grow in size as it travelled, so my initial thought was it looked like a ball of fire but then I got wondering what it was. There were cars on the bridge at the time commuting, so I was thinking one of them may have also seen it."

Police, The Civil Aviation Authority (CAA), and Stardome observatory were approached for comment.

The asteroid that most believe wiped out the dinosaurs struck at the deadliest possible angle, according to new analysis combining 3D numerical impact simulations and geophysical data from the site.

The 66-million-year-old Chicxulub crater in Mexico was formed by a steeply inclined impact of between 45 and 60 degrees to the horizontal, the researchers suggest, which maximised the amount of climate-changing gases thrust into the upper atmosphere.

Such a strike likely unleashed billions of tonnes of sulphur, blocking the Sun and triggering the nuclear winter that killed 75% of life on Earth.

The researchers - from Imperial College London (ICL), the University of Freiburg, Germany, and the University of Texas, US - say their models are the first fully 3D simulations to reproduce the whole dramatic event, from the initial impact to the crater formation.

Reproducing the final stage, in which the transient crater collapsed to form the final structure, allowed them to make the first comparison between 3D simulations and the present-day structure of the crater.

"Our simulations provide compelling evidence that the asteroid struck at a steep angle, perhaps 60 degrees above the horizon, and approached its target from the northeast," says ICL's Gareth Collins, lead author of a paper in the journal Nature Communications.

CBET 4782 & MPEC 2020-K159, issued on 2020, May 25, announce the discovery of a comet (magnitude ~18) by G. J. Leonard on images taken on May 22 UT with the Catalina Sky Survey's 0.68-m Schmidt reflector. The new comet has been designated C/2020 K3 (Leonard).

We performed follow-up measurements of this object while it was still on the PCCP webpage.

Stacking of 20 unfiltered exposures, 55 seconds each, obtained remotely on 2020, May 23.4 from H06 (iTelescope network) through a 0.50-m f/6.8 reflector + CCD + f/4.5 focal reducer, shows that this object is a comet with a diffuse irregular coma about 15" in diameter